Chicago’s Mispronounced Street Names

I recently ran across a post about street names that Chicagoans typically mispronounce. Actually, I’ve run across several posts on this subject. Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, the same nine street names are cited in just about all of them.

It’s impossible to determine who first drew up the list. I recall reading stuff like this when I was in my teens, back in the 1960s. Many of the same names were cited then.

I do have a few quibbles about those nine street names—are we really pronouncing some of them incorrectly? I also have a couple more that were overlooked.

(1) Devon. Like those posts note—and like most Chicagoans I know—I pronounce it dee-VAHN.

(2) Leavitt. Forget the part that looks like “leave.” It’s LEV-itt.

(3) Paulina. Not pronounced like the girl’s name. The street is pull-EYE-nuh.

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11 Responses to “Chicago’s Mispronounced Street Names”

I’ve heard people say Deer-burn, for Dearborn. Some, like the Mr. CTA guy from Milwaukee say Brin-mahr, instead of Brin-more. He also says Gerta, which is ridiculous, as the way he says it, actually sounds like Burton on a crowded & noisy bus, which is just two stops away on the Clark or Broadway buses. I read that’s because that incompetent Frank Kreusi wanted it pronounced that way due to being of German descent.

The “Goethe” business you mention sounds like a needless pomposity. I’m reminded of a prof who always made sure to distinguish the pronunciation of Teddy ROSE-a-velt from Franklin D. RUUS-a-velt—he claimed that the different branches of the family pronounced the family name differently. (Or maybe it was a Republican vs. Democrat thing.)
–HRS

You could be right. I just recall that he made a distinction between the two. Since I thought the prof was being too picky about the pronunciation business, his OCD had the opposite effect on me—I didn’t bother to remember which Roosevelt was which.
–JRS

Chicagoans say KLY-born and KILL-born instead of the Scottish KLY-burn and KILL-burn. They say ROO-zeh-velt instead of ROE-zeh-velt. Then there’s Nina street, pronounced NINE-uh because there is a Neenah street.

Good one! All these years, and I never stopped to think we were mispronouncing Nina Avenue as NINE-uh, though it makes sense. Why didn’t they change one of them in the great street-renaming of the 1930s? As for Roosevelt, either pronunciation is okay—check out Garry’s COMMENTS.
–JRS